'The Art of VR Music' brings its interactive art exhibition online

  • A new VR-based interactive arts exhibition has been released in an online format, exploring the work of four local artists with disabilities.

    The arts and creative industries were extremely badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic, with tourist attractions across Northern Ireland closed, museums and art installations shut, and live performances cancelled. One live art interactive exhibiton is now being opened online thanks to virtual reality technology.

    'The Art of VR Music' was initially intended as a live exhibition that would use virtual reality technology to integrate interactive art into a physical space set up at Vault Artists’ Studios in East Belfast. The idea was to allow the user to walk around the Vault Theatre space and see interactive art installations made using virtual reality.

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    A new version of the project has now been launched as an interactive online gallery space celebrating the work of four local artists with disabilities. The exhibition can be accessed via a web browser right now, and will later be integrated into the physical exhibiton space using VR technology when it's safe to re-open.

    The Art of VR Music was created by musician and Queen’s University PhD researcher Damian Mills, visual artist Jamie Harper, and multimedia designer Paul Marshall. They created a 3D space that lets the viewer interact with the work of local artists Helen Hall, Linda Fearon, Talia McDowell, and Niamh Scullion.

    Damian Mills commented: "I wanted to see if it was possible to create a virtual world that worked in tandem with the real world and to highlight the particular effort and dedication it takes to be creative as an artist with a disability. In the meantime, the pandemic means that we have also taken the project online and recreated the theatre space at Vault and the stories of our four artists, which can be experienced either as an augmented website or in virtual reality."

    To view the exhibition online, head over to https://artofvrmusic.com/

    Source: Written based on press release

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    Brendan is a Sync NI writer with a special interest in the gaming sector, programming, emerging technology, and physics. To connect with Brendan, feel free to send him an email or follow him on Twitter.

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